Overview
The light- and breeze-filled modern houses in Florida of the 1950s--featured in Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses--and the hard-lined silhouette of Yale's Art and Architecture Building (1962) are the two images that come to mind when one thinks of Paul Rudolph. Yet, few people know the work of the last decades of his life, from the 1970s through the 90s. Published here for the first time, Rudolph's final works are explored through his masterful pencil drawings, models, and photographs, as well as the last interview of his life with architect Peter Blake.In a book that considers these projects in the context of his early success, Roberto de Alba explores the architect's buildings designed from 1969 to 1996 and includes an astonishing variety of projects, many built, such as houses, towers, bungalows, chapels, corporate buildings, and urban plans of a monumental scale. All show the complicated interplay of space, light, and mass that are the trademarks of Rudolph's genius. Through de Alba's close contact with the architect before his death, Rudolph's own vision is conveyed in descriptive texts and accompanying images.
Paul Rudolph: The Late Work is designed as a companion volume to The Florida Houses, and is the second in a planned three-volume set of the complete works of this legendary architect.
Synopsis
The light- and breeze-filled modern houses in Florida of the 1950s--featured in Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses--and the hard-lined silhouette of Yale's Art and Architecture Building (1962) are the two images that come to mind when one thinks of Paul Rudolph. Yet, few people know the work of the last decades of his life, from the 1970s through the 90s. Published here for the first time, Rudolph's final works are explored through his masterful pencil drawings, models, and photographs, as well as the last interview of his life with architect Peter Blake.
In a book that considers these projects in the context of his early success, Roberto de Alba explores the architect's buildings designed from 1969 to 1996 and includes an astonishing variety of projects, many built, such as houses, towers, bungalows, chapels, corporate buildings, and urban plans of a monumental scale. All show the complicated interplay of space, light, and mass that are the trademarks of Rudolph's genius. Through de Alba's close contact with the architect before his death, Rudolph's own vision is conveyed in descriptive texts and accompanying images.
Paul Rudolph: The Late Work is designed as a companion volume to The Florida Houses, and is the second in a planned three-volume set of the complete works of this legendary architect.
Library Journal
This is the second volume of a planned three-part series on famed modernist architect Paul Rudolph (1918-97), who has not received the kind of critical acknowledgment that his Harvard classmates and former Yale students achieved. Nevertheless, Rudolph, who is perhaps best known for the modernist Florida homes he designed early in his career (Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses is the first volume in this series), had as distinguished a career as Philip Johnson, Louis Kahn, and Eero Saarinen, in which he sought to reinterpret the modernist legacy of Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Prefaced by a superb overview of Rudolph's work by art historian Robert Bruegmann, this handsomely produced volume contains photos, drawings, and details of the architectural projects that comprised the final two decades of Rudolph's career. Such projects include office towers in Southeast Asia and many of his major residential commissions, of which the Bass Residence in Fort Worth, TX, is especially impressive. Well documented and illustrated with superb photographic reproductions, this work by De Alba, who has taught architectural design at Yale, is a valuable addition to all architecture collections.-Herbert E. Shapiro, Empire State Coll. of SUNY, Rochester Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.